Castle Jongenbos

Hasselt, Belgium, Belgium

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Castle Jongenbos (Kasteel Jongenbos) is a large neoclassical country house and estate located on the edge of the Jongenbos forest, within the municipality of Hasselt in Belgian Limburg, close to the borders of Diepenbeek and Kortessem.

Although the name refers to a “castle,” the building is more accurately a substantial mansion: it is a strictly symmetrical, largely white stone structure with a central balcony, a clock, and the letters “VDM” (for Van der Meer) integrated into the design, reflecting the 19th‑century owner who commissioned it.

The estate’s history is much older than the current building, with roots dating back to 1380 when the area was given by the Count of Loon to a feudal lord, and by the late 18th century a farm already stood on the site within the larger forest called Spissen Bosch. The present mansion was built around 1844–1845 by Willem Joseph Gerard Van der Meer, who replaced an older farmhouse and used wood from the surrounding forest and local clay (found just below the surface) for the construction, after which he replanted the area with new trees between 1844 and 1848.

Through inheritance and marriage the property passed to families such as Claes, De Favereau de Fraipont, and De Cartier d’Yves, whose descendants lived there until the castle was sold in 2014 and acquired by the Appeltans family in 2015, when it ceased to be a private residence and became a more open estate.